Owners of products and services, also referred to herein as advertisers, spend significant funds advertising on television. In addition, advertisers seek to maximize return from their investment in advertising on television by using different techniques. As an example, owners may pay to have an advertisement run at a specific time on a specific channel. Such an advertisement may not only be for products and services, but for any content, such as, but not limited to, video on demand, gaming, and any other content or service. In addition, owners may pay a premium price to have their advertisement run during the showing of popular television programming.
Unfortunately, advertisers do not have control over who may be watching television at a time that an advertisement is run. As a result, funds associated with television advertising are not maximized. Instead, after receiving ratings associated with an aired television show, advertisers pay based upon a previously desired audience and an agreed upon percentage. Funds would be better allocated if a larger number of a specific desired audience could be selected for viewing of targeted advertisements.
Different techniques have been used in an attempt to maximize television advertising investments. Examples of known techniques include attempting to obtain demographic and psychographic profiles, and using information about rating. Unfortunately, information about rating, demographic and psychographic profiles, and targeted rating is obtained using surveys and/or people meters, which are based on small sample audiences and are inaccurate in the collection process. Advertisers, network management, and cable/satellite decision makers would like to use more accurate information for placement and pricing of television advertisements.
Currently, the process of creating television viewer profiles has not made use of the actual actions of the television viewers while watching television. Utilizing information associated with viewer actions while watching television would be very useful in the creating of television viewer profiles.
Thus, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the industry to address the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.